Unfortunately, the war hawks have a tendency to believe what they want. Back in 2010, Joe Keohane wrote a piece in the Boston Globe about how political science shows that “facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds.” He cited recent studies which found that

when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

I have to believe that’s what is happening in this Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, wherein Frederick Kagan and Maseh Zarif from the American Enterprise Institute all but argue war is the only option because Iran is relentlessly building nuclear weapons. Sigh.

18 thoughts on “Facts Are Powerless in the Hands of War Hawks on Iran”

what you report above is a very old tried and true psychological marketing tactic. The first step is to instill fear in the subject by espousing some kind of lie or half truth and keep repeating it until the lie is accepted. Afterwards, when confronted with the truth, more than 90% of subjects continue to believe the original lie, even after being presented with facts!

This is a strategy that has been around since the 1930's. there are many good books on the subject and in fact some are specifically designed for business

one of the best books i have seen on the subject are below. Tactics are right out of GWB's war on terror and axis of evil strategies that he used to get elected

Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game [Hardcover]

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

what you report above is a very old tried and true psychological marketing tactic. The first step is to instill fear in the subject by espousing some kind of lie or half truth and keep repeating it until the lie is accepted. Afterwards, when confronted with the truth, more than 90% of subjects continue to believe the original lie, even after being presented with facts!

But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

Please point to the specific clause(s) of Article II of the Constitution, or any one of the Constitution's amendments, which clearly ENUMBRATE(S) the power of the president to summarily annul any of the rights contained therein, or order any other branch of the federal government to do the same, thereby effectively nullifying his own office, along with the authoritay of any other branch of the federal government.

Government (The Executive Branch) the Power to arbitrarily arrest, charge, Indefinitely Detain Americans that participate in 1st Amendment activities (on the premise) certain 1st Amendment Activities appeared intended or were used to support or provoke hostilities, combatants, belligerents; terrorism and or threaten

National Security. It is foreseeable millions of Americans would increasingly not attend political meetings, peaceful protests or make comments on the Internet out of fear they might be arrested, lose their job; be put on Homeland Security’s NO Hire List, especially if they work for a government agency or contractor—that happened in Nazi Germany.

Government is on the threshold of having surveillance cameras and drones most everywhere. TSA is expanding its checkpoints on highways, bus and train stops and ports. U.S. Government is actively monitoring without warrants—journalists, U.S. Citizens’ social networks, emails, phone calls, Internet Activity and faxes.